With Dominate, IGN Looks To Own Cross-Platform Video Game Check-Ins

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While the check-in started with social apps tied to location in the real world, it quickly spread to the virtual side of things, giving users the ability to check-in to watching tv/movies, listening to music, browsing websites, etc. But one area that remained largely untapped was gaming, which is surprising because it makes a lot of sense. IGN clearly agrees.

The gaming network has just entered the space with their first app, subtly titled: Dominate. The iOS app has just hit the App Store today.

So what is Dominate? It’s an app that allows you to check-in to any game you’re playing and share that information with your friends (via Facebook/Twitter). And yes, if you check-in to a game often enough, you’ll becomes the “Dominator” of the game — think: Foursquare Mayor.

So how is this different from the few other players in this space, notably Heyzap which launched similar functionality recently. Well, Heyzap focuses on mobile gaming only, Dominate wants you to be able to check-in for every type of game you’re playing across all the major platforms (mobile, game consoles, PCs, etc).

And this make a lot of sense since it keeps with IGN’s tradition of appealing to all gamers, no matter the genre or platform.

Right now, the app is pretty barebones. But it’s also very fast and does exactly what it needs to. The plan is to get this out there and gain feedback from the IGN audience.

IGN Director of Product Management, Anand Iyer, notes that even though Dominate is iOS-only right now, the app was written from the ground-up to be platform agnostic. They used the Sencha framework with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript to write the app, then they used PhoneGap to make it iOS-native. In other words, they basically already have the pieces in place to port it to other platforms, like Android.

Iyer recognizes that there’s a lot of opportunity to go in new and interesting directions with this app — perhaps even eventually moving towards a full-fledged high level social network for gaming — completely with in-game integration. But in the immediate future, you can expect the following:

(Push) Notifications for when people you are following start playing a game.

Sharing your game play data on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter

Crunchbase

OverviewIGN is the largest community of first-person shooter (FPS) games. It offers Counter Strike, a traditional e-sports game.
IGN enables its users to connect with other gaming communities including online games and e-sports to create a reliable information network. It promotes healthy gaming movements, as well as an online playground with practical activities for the society.
IGN was launched …